Description

Copyright 2003

Dimensions: 7-3/8" x 9-1/4"

Pages: 576

Edition: 1st

Book

ISBN-10: 0-201-78420-3

ISBN-13: 978-0-201-78420-6

"If you are looking for a complete treatment of business intelligence, then go no further than this book. Larissa T. Moss and Shaku Atre have covered all the bases in a cohesive and logical order, making it easy for the reader to follow their line of thought. From early design to ETL to physical database design, the book ties together all the components of business intelligence."--Bill Inmon, Inmon Enterprises

Business Intelligence Roadmap is a visual guide to developing an effective business intelligence (BI) decision-support application. This book outlines a methodology that takes into account the complexity of developing applications in an integrated BI environment. The authors walk readers through every step of the process--from strategic planning to the selection of new technologies and the evaluation of application releases. The book also serves as a single-source guide to the best practices of BI projects.

Part I steers readers through the six stages of a BI project: justification, planning, business analysis, design, construction, and deployment. Each chapter describes one of sixteen development steps and the major activities, deliverables, roles, and responsibilities. All technical material is clearly expressed in tables, graphs, and diagrams.

Part II provides five matrices that serve as references for the development process charted in Part I. Management tools, such as graphs illustrating the timing and coordination of activities, are included throughout the book. The authors conclude by crystallizing their many years of experience in a list of dos, don'ts, tips, and rules of thumb. The accompanying CD-ROM includes a complete, customizable work breakdown structure.

Both the book and the methodology it describes are designed to adapt to the specific needs of individual stakeholders and organizations. The book directs business representatives, business sponsors, project managers, and technicians to the chapters that address their distinct responsibilities. The framework of the book allows organizations to begin at any step and enables projects to be scheduled and managed in a variety of ways.

Business Intelligence Roadmap is a clear and comprehensive guide to negotiating the complexities inherent in the development of valuable business intelligence decision-support applications

Delete any steps, activities, tasks, and subtasks that are not applicable to your project.

Add any missing tasks and subtasks that are unique to your project.

Be sure to adjust all dependency numbers in the "Predecessors" column by back tracking the dependencies of the steps, activities, tasks, and subtasks that you are deleting.

Since the WBS on the CD lists only the mandatory Finish-to-Start dependencies, be sure to add your own Start-to-Start dependencies (depending on your available resources), as well as any Finish-to-Finish and Start-to-Finish dependencies (if applicable on your project) to create a more realistic project plan.

Add your base effort estimates for all tasks or subtasks in the "Duration" column.

Add your resources in the "Resource Name" column (or on the Resource Sheet) and indicate maximum units for each resource (e.g., 100% if the resource is dedicated to the project fulltime).

Adjust the base calendar or project calendar to set working times and days off that apply to all resources; also adjust the resource calendar to change the working times, days off, and vacations for individual resources.

Preface

Many organizations are already well equipped to implement successful business intelligence (BI) decision-support applications, such as data warehouses, data marts, and other business analytics applications. However, during our consulting and teaching engagements, we have encountered many ill-equipped organizations as well. We observed some common factors among them, which we try to address in this book:

Lack of understanding of the complexity of BI decision-support projects

Lack of recognizing BI decision-support projects as cross-organizational business initiatives and not understanding that cross-organizational initiatives are different from stand-alone solutions

Unavailable or unwilling business representatives

Unengaged business sponsors or business sponsors who have little or no authority due to their low-level positions within the company

Lack of skilled and available staff and sub-optimum staff utilization

Inappropriate project team structure and dynamics

No software release concept (no iterative development method)

No work breakdown structure (no methodology)

Ineffective project management (only project administration)

No business analysis and no standardization activities

No appreciation of the impact of dirty data on business profitability

No understanding of the necessity for and the usage of meta data

Too much reliance on disparate methods and tools (the "silver bullet" syndrome)

Organizations that exhibit one or more of these symptoms need this book. BI project managers and project teams can use this book to improve their project life cycles. They can also use it to obtain the appropriate recognition for their BI projects from the business community and to solicit the required support from their executive management. BI project team members and the business representatives assigned to them can use this book to gain a better understanding of the development effort required to build and deploy successful BI decision-support applications.

The Purpose of This Book

Business Intelligence Roadmap is a guide for developing BI decision-support applications. The two main purposes of this book are to

Explain the complexity of BI decision-support projects

Present a step-by-step guide for the entire BI project life cycle

Complexity

In order to give you an appreciation of the complexity of BI decision-support projects, we describe all of the components that go into a BI decision-support development effort. For example:

You should know what makes a BI decision-support application different from a traditional decision-support system so that you can avoid costly mistakes.

You should understand the infrastructure components of your new BI decision-support application, such as the tools available (for development and for access and analysis).

You should be able to recognize items that could impair the success of your new BI decision-support application.

You should determine how many resources you need and what type of resources, both technical and human.

You should decide on the design or architecture of your BI decision-support application, such as designing for multidimensional reporting or ad hoc querying.

Step-by-Step Guide

Our step-by-step guide across the breadth of a complete development life cycle includes activities, deliverables, roles and responsibilities, dos and don'ts, and entry and exit criteria, plus tips and rules of thumb to lead you to a successful BI decision-support implementation. For example:

You should choose which steps you should perform on your BI project because no two BI decision-support projects are exactly alike.

You should know whether to start with a cross-organizational decision-support solution or a tailored departmental solution with the basis for expansion.

You should understand the sequence in which to perform development activities, that is, which ones can be performed in parallel tracks and which ones have a strong dependency on one another.

In contrast to topic-specific materials available on BI, this book is a single-source development guide written specifically for BI decision-support applications. The guidelines presented in this book are based not only on the authors' personal experiences but also on some of the best practices covered in topic-specific books, articles, and Web sites.

How This Book Is Organized

All software development projects are complicated engineering projects, as demonstrated by the breadth of topics covered in this book. Chapter 0, Guide to the Development Steps explains the general organization of the development guidelines in Business Intelligence Roadmap, which is as follows:

Engineering stages

Parallel development tracks

Development steps

Major activities

Tasks and subtasks

This book is organized into two major parts. Part I, Stages and Steps, describes the 16 development steps, which are introduced in the chapter Guide to the Development Steps. Part I gives you a broad understanding of the development effort involved in BI decision-support projects. Part II, At a Glance, supplements the text contained in the first part of the book with several matrices that should be used together as a reference guide for all BI decision-support projects.

Part I: Stages and Steps

Part I begins with the Guide to the Development Steps chapter and is followed by 16 development chapters. Each of the 16 development chapters is dedicated to one unique development step and describes the effort required to perform the activities of that step.

The Guide to the Development Steps (Chapter 0) describes the general layout of the development guidelines presented in this book, contrasting those guidelines with a traditional development methodology. It discusses the six engineering stages as well as the three parallel development tracks, and it groups the applicable development steps under both. The Guide to the Development Steps explains the application release concept and shows how to organize a BI project with the appropriate roles and responsibilities for the core team and the extended team.

Each of the development steps (Chapters 1-16) begins with an individual chapter overview followed by a section called Things to Consider. These are general questions BI project teams usually contemplate when deciding which activities need to be performed under each development step. These questions are merely presented as "food for thought" and are not necessarily explored in the chapters; nor are they all-inclusive.Each chapter discusses the main topics applicable to the development step covered by that chapter. Some topics apply to more than one development step, such as testing or product evaluation. However, to avoid redundancy these common topics are covered in only one chapter and are only briefly referenced in the other chapters.

Each of the 16 chapters contains a list of major activities for that development step, preceded by a figure showing what activities could be performed concurrently. The list of activities is followed by descriptions of the deliverables resulting from these activities and the roles involved in performing these activities. Each chapter concludes with a brief discussion of risks to weigh in case you decide not to perform that step on your project. Do not interpret the risks of not performing the step to mean that every BI project team must perform every development step exactly as suggested. Instead, use the risk section to determine whether the activities in that development step are—or should be—mandatory on your project. If they are not, you may decide not to perform some or all of those activities after discussing the risks with the business sponsor.

Part II: At a Glance

Part II contains the following matrices.

The Human Resource Allocation Matrix (Chapter 17) lists all the vital roles involved in performing the step activities, tasks, and subtasks. The roles listed in this matrix need to be assigned to project team members. In order to help you discover and avoid potential resource allocation problems, the steps that can be performed in parallel and their appropriate roles are listed together.

The Entry and Exit Criteria and Deliverables Matrix (Chapter 18) indicates the prerequisites, results, and deliverables for each development step. Not every BI project team will need to perform all activities for all development steps. This matrix should help you determine whether you can skip a step or incorporate some of its activities into other steps.

The Activity Dependency Matrix (Chapter 19) is a collection of activity dependency charts for the development steps. This matrix shows at a glance which activities in each step can be performed concurrently. It should be used to determine workflow and task assignments for project team members.

The Task/Subtask Matrix (Chapter 20) itemizes all pertinent tasks, and in some cases subtasks, for all the major activities under each step. This matrix should be used to prepare the work breakdown structure for the project plan. You can customize (expand or reduce) the tasks and subtasks on an as-needed basis for individual projects.

The Practical Guidelines Matrix (Chapter 21) presents three subsections for each development step: Dos, Don'ts, and Tips and Rules of Thumb. Dos point out best practices for the development steps, and Don'ts instruct you how to avoid traps and pitfalls. Tips and Rules of Thumb are our personal collection of experiences over several decades of developing cross-organizational decision-support applications.

How to Use This Book

We suggest that all core members of the BI project team make use of this book as follows.

First, read all the chapters in Part I to gain an overall understanding of all the components of BI decision-support development.

Next, compare your own BI project scope and requirements to the topics in the book. Use the discussions in the chapters to decide which specific development steps apply to your project.

Go to Part II of the book and look up the entry and exit criteria for the steps you selected. Be sure that you have the prerequisites to implement your development approach and that you have a clear understanding of what it takes to move forward.

Put your project plan together for the steps you have chosen by consulting the activity dependency figures and by using the tasks and subtasks listed in Part II. To kick-start your project, you may want to customize one of the work breakdown structures in the Appendix and on the enclosed CD to fit your needs.

Use the matrices in Part II to help guide your development work throughout the project. You can cut and paste required activities and tasks from the CD into your customized project plan.

Who Should Read This Book

Segments of this book should be read and referenced by every member of the BI project team, including business representatives. It is important that all project participants understand "the big picture" and how they and their roles fit into it. This also applies to third-party consultants, who can fill any technical role on the project team. Understanding this larger view of the project and its development effort is essential in maintaining a level of enthusiasm and cooperation necessary for the team. Below we spotlight team members' roles and provide lists of the most useful and applicable chapters for each specific role.

Business Representatives

Although the development steps are technical in nature, business representatives involved in BI projects must understand what activities need to occur during the development effort. Business representatives are expected to participate as full-time members of the project's core team, and some of the activities described in this book will be assigned to them. Table P.1 lists chapters of particular interest to business representatives.

Business Sponsors

Although business sponsors are not directly involved in the daily development effort, they should make frequent checks on the health of the project as well as the project team. In order to do this, business sponsors must have a comprehensive, high-level understanding of the effort. Table P.2 lists the chapters recommended for business sponsors.

Table P.2. Chapters for Business Sponsors

Guide to the Business Intelligence Roadmap

Step 1: Business Case Assessment

Step 2: Enterprise Infrastructure

(See especially the Non-technical Infrastructure section.)

Step 3: Project Planning

Step 4: Project Delivery Requirements

Step 5: Data Analysis

Step 13: Data Mining

Step 16: Release Evaluation

Project Managers

The project manager is responsible for the entire development effort and must therefore be intimately familiar with all development steps. He or she must read all chapters in the book and use the matrices in Part II as an ongoing reference guide, as shown in Table P.3.

Table P.3. Chapters for Project Managers

Guide to the Business Intelligence Roadmap

Part I: Stages and Steps

Part II: At a Glance

Note:BI projects are not for inexperienced project managers. A thorough understanding of project management principles is required.

Technicians

Various types of technicians work on BI projects. Some technicians are assigned to the core team on a full-time basis, such as a lead developer; others are on the extended team supporting the development activities on an as-needed basis, such as a security officer. (For an itemized list of roles assigned to the core team and to the extended team, refer to Chapter 0, Guide to the Development Steps.)

Core team technicians should read all the chapters in the book and use the matrices as an ongoing reference guide, as shown in Table P.4.

Table P.4. Chapters for Core Team Technicians

Guide to the Business Intelligence Roadmap

Part I: Stages and Steps

Part II: At a Glance

Extended team technicians should read, at a minimum, the chapters listed in Table P.5. However, these technicians would gain a greater understanding of the BI decision-support development process if they read all the chapters in the book.

Comments

Despite the large collection of topic-specific BI material, we observed a strong need by project teams for a unified plan or method to follow. Therefore, we started this book with the notion of writing a complete development methodology for BI decision-support projects. We quickly realized that to meet such a goal we would have to produce a multivolume work—something not feasible for most project managers and project team members to read. Our original plan quickly gave way to a general roadmap that would serve as an umbrella for all the major development steps, topics, considerations, and activities of a BI project. In addition, we provide a list of references at the end of each chapter, which are most applicable to the topics of the chapter.We also wanted to share with project managers, project teams, and business representatives our personal discoveries about what works and what doesn't work on BI projects. Therefore, the information we present in the matrices in Part II is an accumulation of our own personal observations, experiences, and judgments.

Finally, to enhance the readability of this complex technical material, we broke up the text with as many tables, graphs, pictures, and other visuals as possible. We hope these visual aids make this book easier to read in addition to clarifying the topics presented.